Map

Biographical details

Professor Stephen Simpson AC is Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre, and a Professor in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney, and Executive Director of Obesity Australia.

Stephen was born in Melbourne. After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Queensland, he undertook his PhD at the University of London. He spent 22 years at the University of Oxford, first in Experimental Psychology, then in the Department of Zoology and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, before returning to Australia in 2005 as an ARC Federation Fellow.

Stephen has been Visiting Professor at Oxford, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Arizona, and Guest Professor at the University of Basel.

In 2007 Stephen was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, in 2008 he was awarded the Eureka Prize for Scientific Research, in 2009 he was named NSW Scientist of the Year, and in 2010 he was named as the Wigglesworth Medallist by the Royal Entomological Society of London, of which he was made an Honorary Fellow. He was also co-writer, narrator and presenter of the four-part documentary Great Southern Land, for ABC TV, which was aired to critical and viewer acclaim in September 2012.

In 2013 Stephen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London as “one of the world’s foremost entomologists and nutritional biologists”, and in 2015 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia “for eminent service to biological and biomedical science.”

Research interests

Stephen Simpson, together with David Raubenheimer, developed an integrative modelling framework for nutrition (the Geometric Framework), which was devised and tested using insects. This has since been applied to a wide range of organisms, from slime moulds to humans, and problems, from aquaculture and conservation biology to the dietary causes of human obesity and ageing. He has also revolutionised understanding of swarming in locusts, with research spanning neurochemical events within the brains of individual locusts to continental-scale mass migration.

Stephen also leads the Precision Nutrition research group. The group's emphasis is 'bottom-up', in that we are especially concerned with the way in which lower-level processes lead to higher level outcomes. The approach focuses on the behaviour of individual organisms and involves an interplay between theory and experiment. Most of our experimental work is on mice, although recent work has examined fish, birds and other mammals - including humans. Techniques employed include the quantitative analysis of behaviour, neurophysiology, metabolic and digestive physiology, mathematical modelling, computer simulations and laboratory selection experiments.

2007

A geometrical and genomic analaysis of the nutritional bases of ageing in a model invertebrate, droSchool of Philosophical and Historical Inquiryla melanogaster; Simpson S; University of Sydney/Bridging Support.

2006

On the move: the study of self-organised movement of animal groups with and without leadership; Simpson S, Beekman M; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).

2004

Integrative behaviour: A new synthesis; Simpson S; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Federation Fellowship (FF).

2001

Adaptability of an insect herbivore, the
diamondback moth, to change in its nutritional environment; Raubenheimer D, Simpson S; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK)/Research Support.

Simpson, S., Sword, G., Lorch, P., Couzin, I. (2006). Cannibal crickets on a forced march for protein and salt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(11), 4152-4156. [More Information]

Warbrick-Smith, J., Behmer, S., Lee, K., Raubenheimer, D., Simpson, S. (2006). Evolving resistance to obesity in an insect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(38), 14045-14049. [More Information]

Simpson, S., Despland, E., Hagele, B., Dodgson, T. (2001). Gregarious behaviour in desert locusts is evoked by touching their back legs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 98(7), 3895-3897. [More Information]

Simpson, S., Sword, G., Lorch, P., Couzin, I. (2006). Cannibal crickets on a forced march for protein and salt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(11), 4152-4156. [More Information]

Warbrick-Smith, J., Behmer, S., Lee, K., Raubenheimer, D., Simpson, S. (2006). Evolving resistance to obesity in an insect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(38), 14045-14049. [More Information]

Simpson, S., Despland, E., Hagele, B., Dodgson, T. (2001). Gregarious behaviour in desert locusts is evoked by touching their back legs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 98(7), 3895-3897. [More Information]